


Sofes

by luluwithan_u



Series: D20 One-Shots [1]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24705805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luluwithan_u/pseuds/luluwithan_u
Summary: Dale has a few final words he never got to say to Sofia.
Relationships: Sofia Bicicleta & Dale Lee, Sofia Bicicleta/Dale Lee
Series: D20 One-Shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1786114
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Sofes

**Author's Note:**

> Hi so apparently I have a wish for feeling sad about D20 characters?? Here goes nothing

Dear Sof,

Do you remember the day we met?

It’s clear as day to me.

I was twenty-three. Fresh out of community college, with an iron-hard will to make good. I won’t say how old you were, or you’ll have my head for it, but you were young too. I had just gotten a job at an accounting firm on the island, and things were slow and steady. They wouldn’t let us go through the books too much, not in Staten Island, so my days were mostly waiting for clients to drop in and doing their taxes as the year went by. You usually weren’t one of those people, not the only daughter of the Bicicletas, but you showed up all the same, with a confusion about the hair salon you had been strangely tasked with solving. The moment you walked into our moldy little building, it was like the sun itself had entered. I call that fate, Sofes.

Gross old Jeremy wanted to do you up, but I couldn’t let him. I took over, I asked for your name, and shivered when you told me it. I knew I had no business with the Bicicletas, but, then again, what business did I have as an accountant on Staten Island at all?  _ It’s just a conversation, Dale _ , I told myself.  _ You’re just talking to a pretty lady across your desk. _

And talk we did. You told me about the salon, about your harem of older brothers, about your closet even. You remarked that it was so strange that I, a New Yorker, was trying to settle down on the island - no New Yorker seemed to ever wanted to go to Staten Island.  _ So slick, they think themselves, _ you told me.  _ Like they fool us with their excuses. Had better just turn it down, you know? _ But not me. I was excused.  _ Making up for all the New Yorkers _ , you told me. I guess I never told you why I moved to Staten Island in the first place, but I’m not sure I could have explained properly. You could say it was… My calling.

Anyway. That doesn’t matter now. You do, and you did then. It was meant to be just one conversation about your salon taxes, Sof, but by the end of afternoon I knew I wanted to be doing your taxes for the rest of my life.

Your parents never liked me, but I had known they wouldn’t even as I asked you out for a drink later that evening. The only person who didn’t hold legal issues against me was your mom, and even she thought I was so clearly a misfit in the Bicicleta family, but it didn’t matter. We knew we were right then, as we know we are right now, and I will know I am right with you forever. Never forget that strength, Sofes. Never forget you had the guts in you to pull yourself out of that house, to stand up to your parents, and go after what you wanted, ‘cause I’ll never forget I was lucky enough to be that thing. You hold so much more strength and power than you even know that, even knowing and witnessing how wonderful you are day after day, you amaze me time and time again. I know you’re meant for great things. Sometimes I wonder, too, what those things are, and what horrendous mistakes I might have made in not wondering harder. The most trying of times are still to come, Sof, and I don’t think you and I have too long before them. I’m afraid I’ve been too focused on protecting you to prepare you for them best I could, but I guess hindsight is 2020, and who knows? You’re a tough cookie. I know you’ll pull through, and I'm sure you'll find your way, or perhaps even my own You’re  _ my _ tough cookie.

Oh, Sofie, there's so much I wanna tell you. How you were a perfect Lee, and how my family would have loved you, had you had the chance to meet. How I was so much better with you, how even though I didn't tell you half of what I could have - should have - you still knew exactly what to say and how to make me feel better. How even though I never showed you a big part of my life, you still knew me better than any of the others ever could. We complete each other, Sof. Don't ya ever doubt that. 

Remember our wedding, Sofes? You gotta remember that. You gotta remember how happy we were, how happy we are, 'cause I don't know when we'll be allowed to be again. I want you to remember every little detail, darling. Your white dress, and how it fell so perfectly off your shoulders, earning you all those looks from nonna, and how only my brother managed to fly in. You must remember the Italian band your dad got, even though he was against the wedding, just because he was not marrying off his one daughter without tradition. You gotta remember Mario falling face-first into the cake, and my friend, Jackson, who managed to sneak off 30 minutes from his job just 'cause he couldn't miss Mrs Lee, and how you not once asked about his wearing a Mets cap to a wedding until he had left. How you're the funniest, most wonderful girl, and you were mine and I was yours. The way I was so nervous about your ring not being big, or shiny, or good enough, but you looked at it - looked at me - and it was like every one of your dreams had come true. How you stood up and told everyone you were gonna be Sofia Lee from then on, and Sofia Lee wouldn't take crap about her husband.  _ They had better watch out _ , you said. You, my Staten Island girl, raised in a shady family who didn’t give you half the credit you deserve, the owner of a great skill for hairdos and a great passion for liquor, were willing to take on the world - your world - for me, a boy from out of the neighborhood who only had a job and a heart with which to love you. You made me the happiest man alive, right then and there. 

God, Sofia, you don’t even know it, do you? Do you have any clue of how happy you have made me? I’m an accountant, Sof - we don’t live very notable lives, and, yet, you’ve made every day of mine an adventure, and you don’t even know it. I know you’ve been happy, Sof, we’ve both been, but I worry about you. I worry about how you can’t see how amazing you are, how sheer magic comes out of you, and quite literally too. It does. Every morning, when you look at the alarm clock like you wanna smash it, then at me like you’ve just discovered I’m there, and every night, when warm little you between my arms is all that makes me able to fall asleep, and every little moment in between too. Everything you put into the world makes it a little bit of a better place to live in, and I’m so lucky to be a part of it. 

I wish we had time for more, and not only more walks on our ways to work and back, but everything - really everything. I want the late nights, the early mornings, the growing into the middle-aged couple that gets stupid drunk on wine like we’re better than others. I want the breakfasts that go so right and the dinners that go so wrong, the incredibly tense visits to your family home, I wanna kiss you at the top of the Empire State Building, Sof. I want us to have a family, with kids running in the backyard, and us sitting back watching them poke at the deer. Can you imagine? Maria and Jackson Lee, waking us up in the middle of the night, making us the Little League parents, being spoiled to heaven and back by  _ nonna  _ Bicicleta and  _ haraboji  _ Lee - I want it, Sof, and I want it so bad. I want it so much I could pack up my things right now and leave the island, leave New York with you, and just never look back. It’s not fair that we can’t have it, not for me and especially not for you, but sometimes… Sometimes there’s nothing to be done. When the going gets rough, remember that, Sofia:  _ it is what it is. _

There’s so much more I want to tell you, and so much I should have told you before, and a truly immeasurable amount of things I should have and tried to tell you every single day, but I don’t know how much longer I have. It’s getting late, and you’re probably waiting for me to come to start making dinner. I can’t believe I’ve let this happen, Sof, and I can’t believe I maybe can’t protect you from it. My last hope is I can get you this letter, because I think you having a physical representation of my affection would maybe ease up my spirits. I won’t say it’s my heart though. That’s been yours since that afternoon when you came to an accounting firm without telling your parents because of your hair salon.

Oh, damn, is that a fire? I think so. It’s right by my building, too… Wow. I should really get going.

I love you, Sofia Lee.

_ Forever  _ yours,

Dale

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you've enjoyed it <3 If you left a comment to tell me I'd maybe faint out of love and gratitude byeee


End file.
